quote:Originally posted by Dr. Benway: I had this idea for a play based around a Q&A at a screening, complete with microphones, audience questions, and occasionally stopping to watch the film. It'll be about the clash of egos between star, director, and critic, and will be an exciting and involving examination of the duality of our relationship twixt art and artist.
That's a truly brilliant idea. I'm not so sure about all that duality stuff, but the main idea... definitely a goer. That might even tempt me back into a theatre.
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I'm going to have to read up, but in ten, maybe twenty years time, who knows! If I don't do it, then I want to go to a screening and just stand up at the beginning and start talking, holding a microphone (hello? is this on? No? I'm just going to have to shout then!) and make up a load of shit about the film in question. Like "Welcome to the NFT screening of blah blah blah", and hopefully get off a few lies before being removed.
I'm not drinking today I think. I've got TWO count em TWO bottles of champagne in the fridge though. It's tempting. Although on a belly full of toast and milk, I'd probably be telephoning the porcelain shoe or whatever the phrase is.
[ 31.01.2006, 08:34: Message edited by: Dr. Benway ]
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I really liked the time-travelling pub idea, as well. I'm disappointed that's never been on the telly. If you could get Tom Baker on board and pitched that to the BBC you'd be laughing.
quote:Originally posted by London: Why doesn't everyone who posts on TMO give up booze for February?
Get to fuck! What on earth would that achieve? This reminds me of chick-dazzle magazine editors who would suggest that all their staff chucked their boyfriends in the same month so they could write about it for the magazine.
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Oh because, of course that never normally happens on TMO. If only we could somehow turn the forum in more of a window into the suffering of others.
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I was vaguely toying with the idea of posting a fiction-excerpt into Ben's thread. That way people would be able not only to watch me suffer, but actually make it happen. Then I noticed that Barbelith had a whole forum dedicated to the practice and the self-aggrandising nature of the exercise started to depress me. Not that I'm anti self-aggrandisingmentnessation, but I'm trying to keep it to a minimum. On the whole though, I did find the general tone of low quality genuinely inspiring.
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I will be having nothing to do with any 'stopping drinking' nonsense. Just be greatful my internet was broken when I got home on Saturday night!
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Something about Barbelith having a fiction comparison area doesn't sit well with me. I've always thought of fiction as a kind of intense and noble art, that works best when it turns the writer inside out, cuts into their most vulnerable areas, and exists outside of the writer. I think that's why I like the Auster books so much.. His writers are always quite lost and distant, and the books often write themselves during black outs or long sessions of isolation.
You could take the odd page or so from most books as an example of 'good writing', but sustainable atmospheres and rounded sympathetic characters are built up over time. Flowery prose, smart dialogue, tight metaphors etc are all good.. they crop up on TMO a lot (I'm astonished at how good vikram is at conjuring evil), but aren't as relevant to novels as people seem to think. It's a mistake to believe that being able to write great bits of text is similar to being able to write a great novel. I must admit that I didn't read the thing that ben posted up. If he ever finished the book, then I would gladly read it, but it's the same as somebody painting half a picture and going 'is it ok'? Or indeed, somebody just demonstrating brush strokes and asking you to either compliment them on their technical painting ability, or imagine what the painting will be like.
I also don't think that it's a good sign if Barbelith people feel a need to reassure each other all the time. Again, it's obviously my romantic idea of writing a book, but I would hate to think that I'd give a fuck what these people who are virtually in competition with me have to say about my writing style. If you read enough, and you write in your spare time, then surely you have the ability to critique your own writing. If not, doesn't that suggest that you've got no chance of writing something decent? Barbelith showing off their snippets seems like the literary of standing next to your motor and posing for pictures before a race. Crowd pleasing, but not relevant.
Also, I wouldn't want to read a book if I thought the author in some way really cared what I personally felt about it. When I read, I interact with the text rather than the author. The concepts rather than the conceiver. Of course, it's hard not to see reflection of the author in the work, but an author could not (for instance) just sit down and reel off the whole book from imagination, which tells me that while the text has been conceived at every stage by the author, the whole thing as a piece of art is kind of seperated from them. If writing is a catharsis, then surely whatever is in the book is something that the author has worked out, got over, and moved on, so a distance is created. But again, this is just what I like to believe.
I don't know. I'd love to read your book, thorn, but I wouldn't like to read a little vignette. Essentially, I don't want to judge your book by its cover.
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today I was supposed to find a job and then write for the magazine. Instead I've just looked at porn and committed the internet equivalent of graffiti on a toilet wall. I am the suck.
[ 31.01.2006, 09:57: Message edited by: Dr. Benway ]
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Yeah. Hey - thanks to Roy recently helping me out with AM 180 by grandaddy, I've been checking out quite a few old songs from yesteryear. Today: Suds and Soda by dEUS. I can assure anybody who has been alive within the last twenty years that they would know and like this tune.
If you don't remember it - this is what it looks like
[ 31.01.2006, 10:03: Message edited by: Dr. Benway ]
quote:Originally posted by Dr. Benway: committed the internet equivalent of graffiti on a toilet wall. I am the suck.
But you see I actually agree with what you writ there, so you know. It's like one of those bits of graffiti where you're having a crap and it catches your eye and it says "Michelle is a dirty slut", and you think "Actually - you know what. She is."
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-------------------- What I object to is the colour of some of these wheelie bins and where they are left, in some areas outside all week in the front garden. Posts: 4941
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O G*d, that reminds me. I was a little bit turned on reading a BBC report about most popular girl names. Yes, really. What made it worse was these were names of babies
quote:1 Jessica 2 Emily 3 Sophie 4 Olivia 5 Chloe 6 Ellie 7 Grace 8 Lucy 9 Charlotte 10 Katie
In the next installment of My Two Dads: Nicole confides all to Vikram but is surprised by his reaction. And Benway is relieved when Judge Wilbur finally grants custody of new foster child Rebecca.
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